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IE 7 Keyboard Guide

For a while I’ve been reluctant to switch to Firefox primarily because of the various IE shortcuts that I had grown to learn and love. Furthermore, when a colleague introduced me to Opera and the host of productivity gestures that you could use I was once again faced with learning even more shortcuts. Thankfully Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera share a large number of shortcuts and with IE 7 there are just a few more you need to make browsing life a little more comfortable.

As pilfered from the IE Blog:

Basic navigation

To do the followingPress this

Go Back to the last page

Alt+Left Arrow
Shift+Mouse wheel up/down also navigates forward and back
Backspace
Go Forward to the next pageAlt+Right Arrow
Shift+Backspace
Stop the page from loadingEscape (Esc)
Refresh the pageF5 or Ctrl+F5
Go to your HomepageAlt+Home
Give focus to the Address BarAlt+D
Add “www.” and “.com” to what you typed
in the address bar before navigating
Ctrl+Enter
Scroll down/up the web pageSpacebar / Shift+Spacebar
Close the windowAlt+F4

Others:

Some interesting hotkeys you cannot see by simply looking in the menus …

To do the followingPress this
Immediately add this site to your favoritesCtrl+D
Open your favorites in a folder windowShift+Click on the “Organize Favorites”
menu item
Put focus on the Information BarAlt+N
Open a link in a new windowShift+Click
Open the right click ‘context’ menu for the currently selected itemShift+F10
Change the text size (will be Zoom in IE 7)Ctrl+Mouse wheel Up/Down

New in Internet Explorer 7

Tabs:

To do the followingPress this
Open links in a new tab in the backgroundCtrl+Click
Open links in a new tab in the foregroundCtrl+Shift+Click
Open a new tab in the foregroundCtrl+T
Switch between tabsCtrl+Tab / Ctrl+Shift+Tab
Close current tab (or current window when there are no open tabs)Ctrl+W
Open a new tab in the foreground from the address barAlt+Enter
Switch to the n’th tabCtrl+n (n can be 1-8)
Switch to the last tabCtrl+9
Close other tabsCtrl+Alt+F4
Open quick tabsCtrl+Q

Zoom:

To do the followingPress this
Increase zoom (+ 10%)Ctrl+(+)
Decrease zoom (-10%)Ctrl+(-)
Original size (100% zoom)*Ctrl+0

Search:

To do the followingPress this
Go to the Toolbar Search BoxCtrl+E
Open your search query in a new tabAlt+Enter
Bring down the search provider menuCtrl+Down Arrow

Favorites Center:

To do the followingPress this
Open Favorites Center to your favoritesCtrl+I
Open Favorites Center to your historyCtrl+H
Open Favorites Center to your feedsCtrl+J

Mouse Actions:

Even with all these cool keyboard hotkeys we’ve introduced a few helpful shortcuts for mouse users as well.

To do the following with a mousePress this
Open a link in a background tabMiddle mouse button
Close a tabMiddle mouse button on the tab
Open a new tabDouble click on empty tab band space
Zoom the page in/out 10%Ctrl+Mouse wheel Up/Down